From his brand new home on the web, Martin Weller asks Why don’t we talk about PLEs anymore? and then provides a handful of reasons. He is mostly right if one accepts his idea of the concept which, in my opinion, is an oversimplified view of what a PLE is, focusing on the tools only. Although some people have taken that perspective, many others who developed the concept offer a much more complex understanding, including besides the tools also the resources you interact with/explore and the people you connect to – this would be the PLN . (personal learning network) part of your PLE. Furthermore, it has also been construed not as a set of tools a user prefers, but more as a personal approach (a “life style”, if you will) to your online actions and interactions (with people and resources) from which you learn (informally, non-formally and formally).

Steve Wheeler (click on image to see original post)

In that sense,the concept of PLE embodies the very essence of (yes, I am going to say it) web 2.0 – user control, ownership, users as producers as well as consumers (prosumers), personal choice, decentralization and rhizomatic nature, participatory culture, etc. At a pedagogical level, it means learner-centeredness, learner control, autonomy and independence, create more than reproduce, curate more than memorize, reflect and practice more than process and apply. It is related to visions of a free, user oriented web, and of meaningful and relevant learning experiences. It relates to what Stephen Downes has been saying for a long time, to Connectivism, to Jim Groom’s Domain of one’s own, to Project Reclaim, etc.

So, yes, the PLE concept has faded and now the talk is all about MOOCs – unfortunately, not the original idea, which, again, was very much tied to PLEs, but to its simplified reinterpretation by elite universities and subsequent followers (dump content on platforms for a mass of people). I bet that if someone in Silicon Valley comes forward and claims to have invented it (again), offering a simplified and monetizable version of the concept, it will become the next buzz word :-).

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Home back from Barcelona, where I ran a workshop with Paulo Simões titled “Twitter: the heart of your PLE?” at the PLE Conference 2010, hosted at Citilab in Cornellá. Here’s the presentation we used to support the workshop (we’ve got some nice feedback :-)).

This was a great event, full of ideas and experimentation, in a very informal atmosphere that provided great chances for interesting conversations and sharing. If you want to follow some of the participants, check out the ple-bcn Twitter list that Paulo Simões created. The organization was top-notch, thanks to a great organizing committee.

Many things PLE-related were covered, but the hottest topic was undoubtedly the possible relationship between individual PLEs and institutional VLEs, with some good ideas on how to develop institutionally supported PLEs that are interoperable with individual PLEs and provide a PLE experience for those who haven’t developed their own PLE yet. New acronyms emerged to characterize this concept, such as iPLE (institutionally supported PLE – Oskar Casquero et al), HIPLE (Hybrid PLE – Ismael Peña-López) or CLE (Cloud Learning Environment – Steve Wheeler & Manish Malik), but the juri is still out on what the best designation might be. SAPO Campus seems to be ahead of the competition and has attracted a lot of praise for their “brilliant work”, as Graham Attwell put it. Check some interesting posts revolving around this discussion.

Two and a half very intensive days (if you count the ROLE workshop on wednesday afternoon), but it wasn’t all work. In fact, some of the best learning conversations took place during breaks and wine tasting sessions. Here’s two of the most entertaining moments of the conference. In the first, Ricardo TorresKompen dances with Jane Challinor in impressive style (via Gemma Tur); in the second, Joyce Seitzinger amazes us with her singing and ukelele playing live for “Sounds of the Bazar“.

PLE2010 was such a great experience that the talk now is about “Where will PLE 2011 take place?”. Here’s a picture of the closing session (via Citilab-Cornellá), that had both moving and hilarious moments: the well deserved standing ovation Ricardo TorresKompen received and Linda Castañeda translating Jordi Adell with a twist.

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The 1st conference of the Master’s in eLearning Pedagogy (MPEL), labeled “myMpel 2010”, took place last Friday, 14 May, at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações in Lisbon. It started out as an idea for an informal meeting among teachers and students from the 4 editions of the master’s program to exchange ideas and experiences, organized by Lina Morgado as the Master’s Coordinator, strongly supported by an engaged group of students from MPEL 3. In the end, it came out as a great academic conference shared by many people around the world through Elluminate (where some presentations were broadcasted), Twitter – #mpelconf – and the social site created to support the conference, with a handful of presentations, both from teachers and students, which were really worth attending. It was also a great opportunity for informal exchanges.

All considered, I’d say it was a perfect day and one to stand as a milestone in MPeL’s history.